Warp Stalker Soloing Talent Build

I’m still downloading patches for WoW (sigh) so I decided to try my hand at some theory-crafting. Keep in mind that I’m not an expert or numbercruncherunlikesomepeople. I’m just doing what I think feels right so please give any comments, suggestions, or complaints you may have on this. It’s just a little test, nothing set in concrete.

I was playing around with the pet talent calculator and ended up with a build for Niqora’s warp stalker Grakoth. If I had to pick one great thing about Grakoth (and warp stalkers in general) is his Warp ability. It instantly teleports him to the mob, costs no focus and has a 15 second cooldown. It’s up for practically every fight and saves me having to wait for him to run over to the mob. It’s perfect for someone like me who does a lot of farming, soloing, dailies, etc.

So about the talent build. When I created it, I kept Warp in mind, as well as wanting Grakoth to keep aggro, stay alive, and maybe do a little DPS on the side. I used Big Red Rhino’s talent review and builds as a guide, making some adjustments for a warp stalker and the fact that Grakoth is only level 70.

Tier 1: The first 3 points went into Great Stamina for the health boost. I ignored Charge because of Warp and Natural Armor was put on the backburner due to it being useful but I think the points are better spent elsewhere. The next 2 points were put in Cobra Reflexes. Previous theory-crafting (not mine, I can’t remember where I saw it) concluded that Cobra Reflexes increased DPS because more attacks means more crits.

Tier 2: 3 points into Spiked Collar because hey, more damage is good. Boar’s Speed was ignored because again…Warp. I put 2 points into Blood of the Rhino for the extra boost it will give to Mend Pet. When I’m doing dailies, I sometimes find that Mend Pet does just a little less healing than I need to negate the damage Grakoth is taking.

Tier 3: More threat helps him keep aggro, hence the 2 points in Guard Dog. Intervene was ignored because I solo mostly and ahem…he’s got Warp. Lionhearted would probably be more useful in PvP so I passed on it. 3 points were put in Avoidance because of the reduced AOE damage and it leads to Last Stand.

Tier 4: No points here. Great Resistance is more for instances and PvP. I was considering Grace of the Mantis but somehow it didn’t seem worth it. A small percentage to reduce the mob’s melee crits…I believe the points could be better spent elsewhere.

Tier 5: Taunt was taking to help Grakoth keep aggro. Last Stand is good for some temporary hit points, say for taking on 3 or 4 mobs at a time.

One of my options is to take the 3 points of of Spiked Collar and put 2 into Natural Armor and 1 into Pet Barding. But my way of thinking is the faster the enemy goes down, the less damage Grakoth has to take. So for now at least I’m willing to sacrifice some armor for the DPS.

There you have it! My patches are finally getting close to being done and I’m going to head off to download some addon updates so I can get right down to playing once everything’s ready. I welcome any opinions and suggestions on this build.

Edit: I forgot that in a comment, Tzia had asked me if Warp and Charge share a cooldown. As you can see, I didn’t take it here and a web search came up with nothing. Unless someone else knows, I’m going to guess that they don’t, because well…that wouldn’t make sense to me. Of course I could be wrong and the only sure way to know is to test it out in-game…which I may end up doing anyways.

Comments closed—Trackbacks closedRSS 2.0 feed for these commentsThis entry (permalink) was posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008, at 2:58 pm by Faeldray. Filed in Guides, Hunter.

Cobra reflexes used to be taken since more crits meant more kill commands. Since Kill command has been nerfed and doesn’t proc with pet crits anymore you might be better off spending your points elsewhere. But your build does look good for what you were shooting for.

@ Telrunya – Baelgun: I see your point. Niqora has 3 points in Ferocious Inspiration and 4 points in Frenzy so almost every time Grakoth crits, both of those abilities come up. So I think in this case it is still worth the points. However if you didn’t have those talents, the points from Cobra Reflexes could definitely be spent elsewhere.

The talent build seems to be good, but you may want to consider Intervene. Intervene, at first glance, appeared to be another charge replacement, but now it seems more like it’s a damage shield for the targeted party member. In this case, you.

I’ve been using a boar, gorilla and wolf so far for my pet testing, and while neither of these pets have Warp, the intervene on them prevents me from dying, suffering pushback on volley at times, plus helps the pet generate threat on an unwanted add quickly. Plus it’s easily macro-able.

/cast [target=”Eightlives”] Intervene

Which allows for my pet to quickly protect me while not losing it’s target.

Just a thought on it.

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